Punished Savior
by Lenn.n.n
Summary: A hole had been carved into her, fast and bloody and perfectly in his image. A story about regret and fury.


**Originally, this was a part of the daily writing challenge (hence the title); unfortunately, circumstances worked against me and I'm far too behind on the challenge to keep up with it now. None the less, I figured I would share this. I've got a few more that I wrote for the following days that may be put up a bit later. Please read and review; I'd like to know your reactions and thoughts about it. **

**Word prompt was: "Ripped Apart"**

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It could have been ten, it could have been twenty. But however many years ago it was, a hole had been carved into her, fast and bloody and perfectly in his image.

It is a hole that will not be filled.

On some days, she imagines him standing tall, as tall as his father. On other days, he is dwarfed but just as strong. Sometimes she imagines him with a toothy, boyish grin that lights up his entire face; other days, she imagines him with a serene smile beneath weary, half-lidded eyes. She thinks that his face will have filled out, perhaps by now grown a beard. She _knows_ that he still has the lemon shaped head that came from her, full of wonder and ideas and dormant ferocity. She hopes, truly hopes, that on top of that surely brilliant head still rests her last gift to him.

It is a stupid hope; no doubt he has grown out of the hat and disposed of it.

Disposed of her.

After all, what use is a mother when she is nothing more than a vague or invented memory, a transparent concept that floats in and out of existence like a ghost?

And a ghost she is. She is ghostly to everyone now— to herself, to Miles, to these monsters she saved. A wraith of her hijacked naiveté, she floats around the guarded village aimlessly, her head still head high despite her despair. Oh, the Green-Eyed villagers bow, they whisper in worship at the sight of her, their revered prisoner, their punished savior. And they, the willingly blind, take her detachment as godly distance and not the deep loathing that it truly is.

But oh, she is cleverer. She knows their prostrations for what they truly are—dutiful masks that hide their own shame, and the dirt beneath which they bury their crime. They all would rather forget their transgression against her, but _she_ remembers.

She had not believed their chief at first. She could not; her heart would not allow it. It was a joke for sure; these people were her _friends. _ She and Miles had saved them from _extinction_. They were supposed to be grateful, supposed to _care_ about her.

They would never, ever _dream_ of putting the secrecy of their village above her and her child.

But they had.

"_**I should have let you all die!"**_ she had screeched at their leader, lunging at him with murder in her heart. **"**_**I should have let you and your children suffer! I should have let the sleeping sickness take you!"**_ And when Miles had tried to restrain her, had tried to absolve and protect these bastards that had turned on them, she had lashed out at him with words and her hands, one drawing tears and the other drawing blood.

He still wears the marks today, and she feels no shame when she sees them.

But Miles is, of course, still her husband and sanity. She loves him, and still longs for the life with him that she was cheated out of. But nowadays, he clings to her like a solitary lifeline, and she wearily knows that he would despair without her. She likes to think that it is the same for her—that she would die without him like a good wife should. But then she sees the marks on his face and opts not to think too hard on it.

Instead, she turns to pointless fantasies of revenge. She imagines many fates that she wishes would befall her captors. She imagines them being consumed by a swarm of army ants, imagines their screams as their flesh is flayed from their bones. She imagines killing every one of them with her bare hands, slowly and systematically ripping them apart the way they ripped her son from her life. Most often, she imagines the return of the sleeping sickness. She imagines doing what she should have done the first time: turning her back on them all, ignoring their pleas and cries for help and allowing them to die so that she could be with her son.

At the end of the day, Stella Shortman imagines many things.

But after _so_ many years of this, she is weary. She is old. She is tired of staying strong for Miles. She feels the horror of surrender crawling closer and closer, but she still has to beat it back. Still she dares to hope, because Stella Shortman has a wound, and it is a wound that she wants. Surrender will not fill it. Surrender will not calm it.

There is an ache inside of where her Arnold should be, and she will have it no other way.


End file.
